Message from the gods
put in Braydon Ennor for the try. But it was the simpler things that gave even more pleasure.
Goodhue made the space for that half break by just drifting slightly to the outside as the pass came. An artist of time and space, he would have loved to have been coached by Carwyn James. The quickness and accuracy of Goodhue’s orthodox passing always made that fraction of an extra second of time for his teammate.
‘‘IN FRONT OF THE RECEIVER,’’ said James incessantly in training. ‘‘Think! Think! Think!’’
Then there was Goodhue’s stop and go which created an overlap which should have led to another try. But above all, does anyone in world rugby straighten the line as well as the Crusader. There were two moments in the first half which had the straight line beauty of a colonnade dedicated to the gods.
Goodhue reminds me of Cliff Morgan, in that soft Welsh lilt of his, calling the great Mike Gibson in commentary, ‘‘the Gibson Man’’. The Irishman was one of the heralds of rugby evolution. The Gibson Man was an archetype in reducing the complex to the simple. And so now comes another New Zealander, ‘‘the Goodhue Man’’.
Gibson once said: ‘‘Don’t get the impression that rugby football is a vastly complicated game.’’
Ian Foster perhaps said something similar of Goodhue starting out for the All Blacks: ‘‘He wasn’t over-thinking things. He just did what was obvious to him and that doesn’t just happen – it comes from a lot of hard work behind the scenes.’’
At Twickenham, England were running over the top of Italy in their tanks. Joe Cokanasiga weighs 118kg, Manu Tuilagi is 114kg, Ben Te’o is 106kg. Two of them are heavier than the heavyweight champion of the world, Anthony Joshua, who weighs in at 113kg.
Goodhue is 98kg. He is by no means small but he comes from another time. Goodhue said once: ‘‘When you’re on the field it’s like playing a game in your backyard or back in the old kids’ rugby club. It’s all instinctive, I just try to play the game I’ve been playing for the last 18 years of my life.’’
The mind floats back to late 1945 when New Zealand took a team of army ‘Kiwis’ to bring some joy to the grey fields of Britain. Vice-captain Jack Finlay said team discussions ‘‘would centre on the principles of basic rugby, passing at the right time, correct backing up and team support’’.
And in the midst of these men was a centre called Johnny Smith. Rugby commentator Winston McCarthy said of Smith: ‘‘He had everything – perfect poise, he could swerve, he could fend, he could sidestep off either foot, he could kick with either foot, he could change pace in a flash, and, above all, he never lost his cool.’’
Smith came from a little northern town called Kaikohe. Goodhue was raised on a dairy farm outside outside Kawakawa, just east of Kaikohe. Maybe there is something holy in the spirit of these northern places. Maybe Smith and Goodhue, the Maori and the Christian, are messengers of their various gods.
Or maybe they are just messengers of the possible, messengers of how rugby is played on elysian fields. If that is the case maybe Goodhue should have the last word.
A year ago Goodhue told Phil Gifford he was working with a charity and was mentoring a lad who had just started at intermediate school. Goodhue said: ‘‘It is important to find the time to take a break from rugby. You can get caught in the trap of thinking about the game all the time, so it becomes all consuming, and probably unhealthy.’’
Amen.